Downtown Cheyenne Parking STRICTLY Enforced Soon

In America, the average person will spend over 26 hours a year just parking their car. 4 – 5 minutes a day adds up. In downtown Cheyenne, parking is at a premium and we don’t have parking meters which have been around since 1935, and we don’t have public parking structure attendants or automated ticket dispensers.

From Cheyenne City Councilman Richard Johnson's Facebook page, the following from the DDA.

"Beginning March 12, 2018, Cheyenne Police Department will begin a STRICT enforcement program on ALL parking structures and street parking. O Avoid a parking ticket, purchase a monthly pass from Downtown Development Authority.

You can simply stop by at our office at 1601 Capitol Avenue Monday through Friday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Cost per monthly ticket is $25 dollars and is payable with check, cash and card.

Daily passes are also available for $4 dollars and can be purchased through the city clerk office, 2101 O’Neil room #101."

This makes me want to avoid downtown Cheyenne just to avoid the hassle and potential fine. A trip to Geek Garage or The Homebrew Store could end up costing me more time or more money than I want to spend.

“Is this just during daytime business hours? How about nights and weekends? Or the people who are just visiting the city? They should have permit parking for people who work downtown and don't want to have to move their car every 1 to 2 hours. From the sounds of it, I'll end up paying $4 if I need to park for 15 minutes. And I would need to go pay for the parking at the clerk's office first. Sounds like I won't be going downtown anymore.”

“it's all per the individual street limits that are clearly posted on the signs on those streets- and fyi, if you park on the same block twice in one day, and exceed the time limit for that block over the two times, you MAY be ticketed- but they're usually not jerks about that, but do keep in mind that they CAN.”

“You can't park on the same side of the street block more than once a day, no matter if it's 5 mins or 2 hours. You will get a ticket.”

“How does this make any kind of sense? Is Cheyenne trying to get MORE stores in the middle of downtown to close?”

“If you know you are going to spend more than two hours downtown, first you have to go to clerk's office, wait in line and purchase a one day parking pass. I don't mind spending the for dollars but this is ridiculous.”

“But what if I (or a city visitor) wanted to park downtown and browse the shops a bit? How would a visitor know of this policy? Wouldn't it make more sense to have a kiosk downtown or I dunno, a pay station at the car park?”

“which is why most cities just use meters for each spot, but that ends up costing far, FAR more by the month or day. (for the driver).”

“Weren't we trying to get more people and businesses into the downtown??”

“I know it’s a tough balance, but when the productivity of your workers is interrupted by their worry about parking it’s a problem. Likewise, customers worried about ticketing interferes too.”

“Try being a female walking to your car after dark in the parking garage.”

“Why not install a ticket booth and arms. Then the general population does not have to go to the clerk's office to purchase a one day parking permit.”

“So we host a four day conference for 1,500 high school students using the Civic Center. We pay about $7,000 to the Civic Center for the event, plus bring in over $1 million in revenue to the city. There's hardly any street parking around there, and we've been allowed to use the city lot and garage. Now, each of our high schools, staff and guests will have to pay for a daily permit to park in those lots?”

“You know what would be great, if we could buy these online and print them out instead of having to find a parking space, walk over there, wait for someone to actually help you buy one, and then walk back to put it in your car before going wherever you want.

Or automated machines for the day passes.

You know, like basically every other city has for its municipal parking structures?”

“So, Denver had these cool things, they're called parking meters.... It's great, seems like they come with their own time limit and there's no burden to the citizens over whether or not they need to have a parking permit to park downtown...”

There seems to be a lot of confusion over this parking issue, which is not new, but will now be STRICTLY enforced. The ongoing conversation can be seen on Richard Johnson’s Facebook page.

This longtime problem is angering and/or confusing a lot of people who work downtown, shop downtown or drink and dine downtown.